


Home Is Where You Hang Your Heart

by RayShippouUchiha



Category: Bleach
Genre: Abandonment, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Kurosaki Ichigo, BAMF Urahara Kisuke, Bad Parent Kurosaki Isshin, Central 46 Are Assholes, Comfort, Domesticity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Homemaker Ichigo, Homemaking, Hurt Kurosaki Ichigo, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kuorsaki Isshin's A+ Parenting, Kurosaki Ichigo Needs a Hug, M/M, My Canon Now Kubo, Possessive Behavior, Post-Winter War (Bleach), Protective Urahara Kisuke, Romance, Sealed Kurosaki Ichigo, Smitten Urahara Kisuke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayShippouUchiha/pseuds/RayShippouUchiha
Summary: UraIchi Week 2020 Day 5: Relationship Ridiculousness - Idiots In Love, Domesticity“Don’t …” Ichigo manages to slur the word out, as close to begging as he’s come since that rainy day by the river bank.But begging his mom to wake up hadn’t worked then.And asking Suì-fēng not to do this to him doesn’t work now.Suì-fēng’s hands come closer.The ribbon glows and seems to split, black and gold tendrils lashing out to wrap around Ichigo’s throat.For a long, painful moment Ichigo can’t breathe.Then the seal, stronger and somehow more vicious than anything Ichigo has ever felt before, snaps into place.Ichigoscreams, a high pitched and warbling sound, as agony arcs through his entire being.Then black surges forwards around the edges and drags him all the way back down.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 27
Kudos: 614
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	Home Is Where You Hang Your Heart

The world begins to come back to Ichigo in bits and pieces.

First there’s the brightness of the light bathing the room that he’s in. It sends pain slicing through his nerves the few times he manages to pry an eye even partially open. Then there’s the scent of mint and the feel of rough sheets beneath his fingertips. There’s also the familiar tightness on his limbs that tells Ichigo that he has, once again, been extensively bandaged.

He can’t focus on anything for longer than a split second, nausea teeters on the edge of every inhale and his head feels as if it’s been stuffed with cotton.

Ichigo _hurts_ down to the depths of his very soul.

But he still feels it the moment the kidō spell hits him.

The heavy, oppressive, feeling of the seal slams down on him so hard that Ichigo can’t help but _wheeze_.

Ichigo manages to focus just enough to see the stoic face of Suì-Fēng staring down at him.

And then he blacks back out.

~~~

The world passes Ichigo in flashes.

There’s the feel of hands tight around his upper arms. The slide of his toes across smooth wood as he’s forcefully moved, injuries jolting painfully with every step.

The pain that slams into him when he’s forced down onto his knees on an unforgiving floor. With his arms locked behind his back he’s off balance so the hands clamped tightly onto his shoulders, uncaring of the bandaged but still open wounds they’re digging into, are the only things keeping him upright.

“Kurosaki Ichigo,” an unfamiliar voice manages to capture Ichigo’s attention, “have you anything to say on your own behalf?”

“ _W-What’s_ ,” Ichigo slurs, head lolling as the seal lifts just enough for him to function to a small degree again. But his tongue, thick and heavy in his mouth, still doesn’t want to cooperate. His head’s still swimming and his limbs are still so weak. “ _Wh-at’s going ...?_ ”

“Do not pretend ignorance,” another voice barks off to the side.

Ichigo tries to turn in that direction, tries to _focus_ , but the seal and his own weakness means that his body won’t cooperate.

“The boy is wounded ... powerful bakudo,” a third voice, points out, softer than the others. “... not the time ... interrogation?”

Ichigo only catches every few words, blackness pulsing at the edges of his mind as he struggles to stay conscious.

“It is the _only_ time,” someone else cries out. “We must strike _now_ ... weak. Before his power returns ... thoughts on the subject.”

“Indeed,” the first voice agrees.

“... mistake,” the softer voice that had spoken up before points out. “....our first act of power ... strike Kurosaki Ichigo … reincarnation cycle completely ... knowledge … slip past the wall of this ... assembly hall … riots, rebellion … _civil war_.”

Ichigo feels ice trace down his spine because, even as listless and confused as he is right now, even with the way the world keeps slipping in and out of his grip, he understands what they’re saying.

Some of these people want him _dead_.

 _Permanently_.

In all ways.

Ichigo tries to fight. Of course he does. There’s no way in hell he’ll take this on his knees.

No way he’ll sit here passively as they murder him.

But no matter how he strains he can’t break through the seal that’s been placed on him, the ocean of reiryoku he normally has access to dried up to only a weak trickle.

All he can manage to do is bare his teeth in a snarl.

“ ...seal...” Ichigo hears a fourth voice say sharply. “Containment … only option …”

“Seal,” another voice agrees.

And then another, and another.

The world flickers around Ichigo, vision and senses hazing in and out, in and out.

“Kurosaki,” Suì-fēng’s voice snaps Ichigo back into what passes for awareness for him now.

Head lolling back, Ichigo stares up at her.

Her face is grim and, for a split second, Ichigo thinks he sees something that looks almost like a strange mix between satisfaction and _regret_.

Maybe.

“You fought bravely,” Suì-fēng murmurs softly, as close to a kind word as she’s ever really had for him.

And then she brings her hands up between them and Ichigo feels everything inside of him rebel.

Laid out across her palms is a length of what looks like black silk ribbon covered in scrolling gold writing.

Even in his current state, burnt out and battered and _weak_ , Ichigo can feel the oppressive seals etched onto every bit of the thing.

They make every hair on his body stand on end, make something inside of him recoil and _snarl_.

“ _Don’t_ …” Ichigo manages to slur the word out, as close to begging as he’s come since that rainy day by the river bank.

But begging his mom to wake up hadn’t worked then.

And asking Suì-fēng not to do this to him doesn’t work now.

Suì-fēng’s hands come _closer_.

The ribbon glows and seems to split, black and gold tendrils lashing out to wrap around Ichigo’s throat.

For a long, painful moment Ichigo can’t _breathe_.

Then the seal, stronger and somehow more vicious than anything Ichigo has ever felt before, snaps into place.

Ichigo _screams_ , a high pitched and warbling sound, as agony arcs through his entire being.

Then black surges forwards around the edges and drags him all the way back down.

~~~

“Are you sure about this Ichi-nii?” Yuzu’s soft question pulls Ichigo out of the slight daze he’d fallen into.

“Hm?” he hums out a questioning sound even as he reaches back to gather his hair up into the high tail he normally wears it in on the days Yuzu or Karin don’t cat-fight over who gets to style it for him, eager to return the favor of years of Ichigo doing their hair for them.

Looks like that’s something else Ichigo’s going to have to get used to doing for himself now.

“You could stay,” Yuzu murmurs even as she shuffles closer, one hand reaching out to toy with the edge of his vest.

“We could kick Oyaji out instead,” Karin huffs from where she’s leaning against his door frame, arms crossed over her chest and a sullen look on her face. “It’s not like he does anything around here anyways. Nobody’d miss him.”

“The clinic’s here,” Ichigo reminds her for what feels like the millionth time. “And this _is_ his house.”

“Barely,” Karin sneers just a bit, a certain sort of bitterness in her voice that Ichigo has always hated to see but has grown harder and harder to ignore.

The low key irritation, anxiety, and anger towards Isshin that’s always been such a large part of both Ichigo and Karin, and to a lesser degree Yuzu, has shifted for all of them in these last few years.

On his part Ichigo's entire outlook on their relationship, on everything that had happened in this house, had changed. After years of Isshin’s _training_ , after becoming a Shinigami and all the anger and agony that had brought him, after then two seemingly endless years of war and everything that had followed after it, Ichigo’s anger hasn’t so much cooled as it has _guttered_.

The stark truth is that Ichigo just doesn’t care enough to be angry at Isshin anymore, not really.

Isshin’s nonchalance, his acceptance and borderline agreement with what had been done to Ichigo had finally been one betrayal, one callous mistreatment, too many.

So, in turn, Ichigo had finally washed his emotional hands of the man who was supposed to be his father.

It was, in all honesty, like having a weight lifted off of his shoulders that he’d never really realized he was carrying in the first place.

But as for the twins? Younger and softer and shiny around the edges in ways Ichigo hasn’t been in years now? None of it was as simple for either of them.

The months they’d spent faithfully helping Ichigo recover after the war, both now fully aware of what had been going on in his life since telling them had finally been completely unavoidable, had only made it all worse.

Instead of Ichigo’s impassive sort of dismissal towards Isshin, Karin’s anger had only grown higher and hotter.

Instead of the cold sort of distance Ichigo had finally managed to carve out inside of himself, Yuzu’s anxious sort of sadness had only dug itself deeper and deeper.

Karin’s often one sided screaming matches with Isshin had gotten worse. Yuzu’s anxiety and stress baking had tripled.

And then, two months into his recovery and for the first time since Ichigo had returned to Karakura, Isshin had attempted one of his classic _surprise training attacks._

Even in his _damaged_ state Ichigo had tossed him into a wall with relative ease. But the way Yuzu had _screamed_ still haunts Ichigo. Not to mention Karin’s reaction when she’d seen the fresh blood staining the bandages over one of his more lingering wounds.

In the end that moment had made Ichigo realize what his only real option was. He’d been tossing the idea around since the instant he was able to stay awake for longer than a few minutes, since the very _second_ Isshin had yet again shrugged off what had been done to Ichigo.

He needed to leave.

The last thing Ichigo wants is to drag either of his precious sisters, two of the only truly bright spots left in his life, any further down with him than he already has.

So the best thing he can possibly do for all of them is move out, put some distance into place that'll hopefully help things calm down for the both of them.

And now, just under a year after he’d woken, bleeding and broken, on the front stoop of the Kurosaki Clinic to the sound of Karin’s panicked screams and Yuzu's desperate sobs, Ichigo is finally ready to go.

“Hey,” Ichigo wraps an arm around Yuzu’s shoulders and pulls her closer to him, fitting her snugly under his right arm like he always does. Karin shuffles further into the room without him having to ask, taking her spot on his left side. “I was always going to move out eventually you know. This is just … a little different than what we thought it’d be. Besides, I’ll be a lot closer like this right? That means you two can come over whenever you want.”

“It’s not fair,” Yuzu finally whispers, face pressed against the front of Ichigo’s vest, fingers still tugging at the hem.

Her free hand comes up to press softly against the front of his throat and the black and gold silk that sits there.

Ichigo bites back the urge to flinch, unwilling to hurt her like that.

“It’s fucking stupid,” Karin grumbles even as she tucks herself closer to him, one arm slipping behind him so she can tangle her fingers in the ends of his hair.

Ichigo doesn’t answer because they all know they’re no longer just talking about him moving out.

Not really.

Ichigo was always going to move out, that’s true, but they’d thought it’d be to Tokyo or perhaps even somewhere abroad for college.

But going away to college isn’t an option for Ichigo, not now, not anymore.

The nearest university is roughly ten minutes outside of the Karakura Town limits.

But for Ichigo, bound as he is, it might as well be ten thousand miles away.

His leash just doesn't extend that far and Ichigo already knows what's in store for him if he ever tries to cross the town limits again.

Unfortunately the twins do too.

Karin, his tough and gruff little sister, still has nightmares about the first and last time Ichigo had tried.

Yet another thing Ichigo is powerless to change these days.

So Ichigo just pulls the both of them closer instead and doesn’t say anything at all.

~~~

Ichigo both loves and hates his new apartment.

Settled above Hoga-baachan’s flower shop it’s less of an apartment and more of a tiny single room with a half bathroom attached.

But the rent is cheap, something even he can afford with the odd jobs he picks up, and there’s room for a small hot plate for him to cook on and there’s a decent public bath and laundromat within walking distance.

And it’s undoubtedly a relief to have so much distance between him and Isshin and the house that does nothing but remind Ichigo of everything he’s lost.

So all of those are positives but, in the end, what actually bothers Ichigo most is the _silence_.

Even though the privacy is nice, for the first time in Ichigo’s life he’s completely alone in a way he never thought would happen.

 _But_ , Ichigo thinks just a bit helplessly as he sits on the edge of his unfurled futon in the pressing silence of his new home, _it is what it is_.

There’s nothing Ichigo can really do about it so he’ll just have to adapt.

Like he always seems to do.

Somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> Be sure to let me know what you think and check out the fic tag Home Is Where You Hang Your Heart AU
> 
> http://rayshippouuchiha.tumblr.com/


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